Other Names:  My Sweet 16 Waxflower

Description:

A fine flowering shrub with fine needle-like foliage and a mounded, open habit; fragrant clusters of white blooms turn pink, then mature to pure red; great for cutting; a perfect accent for the garden, the border, or containers

Ornamental Features

My Sweet Sixteen Waxflower features showy clusters of white cup-shaped flowers with pink overtones and chartreuse eyes at the ends of the branches from late winter to mid spring. The flowers are excellent for cutting. It has attractive green evergreen foliage. The glossy needles are highly ornamental and remain green throughout the winter.

Landscape Attributes

My Sweet Sixteen Waxflower is an open multi-stemmed evergreen shrub with an upright spreading habit of growth. It lends an extremely fine and delicate texture to the landscape composition which can make it a great accent feature on this basis alone.

This is a relatively low maintenance shrub, and should only be pruned after flowering to avoid removing any of the current season's flowers. It has no significant negative characteristics.

My Sweet Sixteen Waxflower is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Accent
• Mass Planting
• Rock/Alpine Gardens
• General Garden Use
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

My Sweet Sixteen Waxflower will grow to be about 5 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 4 feet. It has a low canopy, and is suitable for planting under power lines. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 10 years.

This shrub should only be grown in full sunlight. It is very adaptable to both dry and moist growing conditions, but will not tolerate any standing water. This plant should not require much in the way of fertilizing once established, although it may appreciate a shot of general-purpose fertilizer from time to time early in the growing season. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This particular variety is an interspecific hybrid. It can be propagated by cuttings; however, as a cultivated variety, be aware that it may be subject to certain restrictions or prohibitions on propagation.

My Sweet Sixteen Waxflower makes a fine choice for the outdoor landscape, but it is also well-suited for use in outdoor pots and containers. With its upright habit of growth, it is best suited for use as a 'thriller' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination; plant it near the center of the pot, surrounded by smaller plants and those that spill over the edges. It is even sizeable enough that it can be grown alone in a suitable container. Note that when grown in a container, it may not perform exactly as indicated on the tag - this is to be expected. Also note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.